Manage Your Energy

In Chapter 9: Be a Learner of Onward, Elena Aguilar discusses the need to understand and implement ways to manage both your time and your energy. This is essential to survival in the field of education. We shared this blog on managing your time, so today we will dive into managing your energy.

As I look for resources to share here on our Onward website, I am always trying to find a balance between resources that are inspirational with resources that offer practical strategies. This article from Harvard Business Review meets both those requirements. Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy share Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time. They share stories of people in the workforce who are burning out, and was reminded of countless conversations as a coached new teachers who were inevitably the first car in the staff parking lot in the morning and the last car at night to leave. Schwartz and McCarthy share how “Most of us respond to rising demands in the workplace by putting in longer hours, which inevitably take a toll on us physically, mentally, and emotionally. That leads to declining levels of engagement, increasing levels of distraction, high turnover rates, and soaring medical costs among employees.” And I see this way too often in the schools I have worked in.

This article shares some practical strategies for managing your energy by breaking this down and exploring each of these energy sources:

  • The Body: Physical Energy
  • The Emotions: Quality of Energy
  • The Mind: Focus of Energy
  • The Human Spirit: Energy of Meaning and Purpose

Which energy source of yours needs some love and attention?